A Fiver

As of October 7th, the Lou is 5 months old. She is such a joyful baby.

  

Pretty much all the pictures I took today look the same because she was just laughing and giggling at me. 

Recent developments: 

-a horrible mullet. Leesie's hair is thick in the back, middle of her head. It really is terrible, but also hilarious. 

 -so close to crawling. Elise attempts to gain momentum by face planting. It looks a little painful. Here she is mid-face plant.

It's comparison time. I've never posted side-by-side photos of the girls at the same age and it is officially time for it. Why? Because I decided

 They definitely look similar, but not as similar as I thought. I don't think I had an accurate picture of what Sadie looked like at this age in my head. Sadie's cheeks are way bigger and Leesie's eyes are HUGE. 

Good thing I love them both just about equally.

 

Official 5 month photo 

Apple Picking

Two weeks ago we went apple picking. Yes, apple picking, in Utah! My BIL (brother-in-law) Bryce found a place in Midway that is open on Saturdays in September. We made it on the last Saturday in September.

Instead of walking around rows and rows of apples and hand-picking them to your heart's content, we had to spot apples high in the branches of 20 trees and hope our claw thingy could reach them. 

When the claw couldn't reach them we tried some other methods- sitting on shoulders and just climbing the trees

While it was nothing like apple picking in the Northeast, we still had a great time and Sadie ate tons of apples. 

Mostly by picking up apples from the ground, taking one bite, and then moving on to the next one. 

 

Elise was more than happy to pose with an apple

When Sadie got tired of eating bruised apples off the ground she tried climbing the tree.

 She whined when she couldn't do it.

Then she whined some more to sit on Dad's shoulders. 

Happy about sitting on Dad's shoulders.

An apple with a beautiful view behind it

Happy to be on Mom's lap

Happy to be taking a snack break- something  other than apples

The setting was absolutely beautiful. We will be returning every fall as long as we are in Utah

The Great Outdoors

We spent a lot of time outside in September. The weather was perfect. Here are pictures of some of our outdoor adventures. 

Check out how thick and dark Sadie's lashes (and brows) are

Please note Sadie pushing an empty stroller

Watching from her stroller, as usual

Except this day- Leesie got in the swing and promptly took a nap

Learning how to blow dandelions

Look at Whitney's face- hahaha

Louie Gooie

with Uncle Matt

You are not going to believe this, but Elise has spent the past month getting cuter.

Getting cuter, and hitting milestone after milestone. I make of fun of parents who say things like "stop growing up so quickly!" but I actually feel that way with Elise. She has been rolling all over the place for the past 3 weeks and she is already scooting a bit. I wish she would just slow down a little. I don't want 2 mobile children.

She loves the exersaucer, although she gets a little overwhelmed when her hands get stuck or if she hits too many buttons that play music at once. 

 

Lou smiles all the time. Besides when she cries, of course. But most of the time she is happy. 

Constipation is not Elise's friend. It causes many of her tears. More on that later.

(I guess, is constipation anyone's friend?)

Modeling a too-small 0-3 month swimsuit that left deep indents in her shoulders. Oops!

Last week I took Elise in the pool for the first time. She loved it until she needed to poop and I hurried her out to change her into a real diaper. Yes, we were swimming in 90 degree weather on September 30th and on October 6th we had snow. Someone bring me some autumn please! Good thing I am going to Boston in 2 weeks to get some for myself.

Milestone alert: baby food!!!

Couldn't wait for the rice cereal- had to eat her arm

I swore I would wait until Elise was at least 6 months old but I was desperate to find something that might help her sleep better at night.

She hated the rice cereal. Like, a lot. I thought maybe she just couldn't figure out how to swallow it, but then I noticed she seemed to be purposely pushing the food out with her tongue. This was confirmed when I fed her prunes a few days later and she swallowed almost everything.

Sadie got jealous I was feeding Elise. She kept whining for bites (see above- that's not laughter, it's first class whine). When I finally gave her a bite she was too proud to admit that I was right (it's yucky) but she said "no more, Mommy".

Actually, if Elise could talk she'd probably say the same thing. No more rice cereal for her! I might try some of the other infant cereals but for now we are sticking to prunes because they keep the constipation away!

Playing Catch Up

Well, it took me a whole month to do that post about Kansas City and in that month we have done a lot. Here are some random pictures from September. 

We went to Elise's 4 month appointment.

I spent the whole time trying to keep Sadie happy. Sadie and I both got flu shots during the appointment and Sadie freaked out. Meanwhile, Elise got 3 immunization shots and barely cried.

My girls read together. ESPN Magazine is obviously the most educational reading.

A week after we got back from KC, Anthony and Carrie came out to Utah for a quick visit. 

Even though we had just visited them for a week we tried our best to see them as much as we could. Those were the only 2 times we'll see them this year. Too bad we couldn't spread it out.

We had a big group over to watch the BYU-Texas football game. Very disappointing.

You know what was not disappointing? The kids played together really well. 

They even ran around giggling together for a while. 

 

 Lou was devastated about the loss when she went so far as to wear her pink BYU shirt

One Sunday Sadie modeled my shoes

Sadie and Mimi chatted on the curb for a while.We've gotten to see a lot of them since they are up here in Utah now. Sadie has taken to calling Bear Paw "Paco" instead. It's awesome.

 

We installed carpet on our basement stairs (kind of). Whitney is staying with us for a while and we wanted to make the basement a little nicer for her. 

We got a free dinner courtesy of Firehouse subs (Whitney's employer)

Sadie loves the free hats they provide

We went out twice for my birthday. Daniel did a great job planning a date. We got to play tennis for the first time in a year (and we sucked) and then ate the best sweet potato fries ever at Guru's. 

More exciting September events coming soon...